Memories Lost (1 of 1)
by EleanorKate
Summary: His arms around you, both with memories wild, where do you find peace?


Camilla loved the sound of a thumping old thunderstorm.

Thunder and lightning, crashing against the windows of their honeymoon hotel bedroom, its violence barely controlled against the density of the night sky. The anticipation in the air after what had been an oddly close September day filled her veins with excitement. No matter how tiny she had been she had loved to watch the leaden sky; anticipating the next bolt as it crackled its path to the ground. She could sit and watch a storm for hours, hearing the old house creak with the wind and the room being engulfed in flashes of light.

Despite the passion of the storm outside, she felt safe.

This was in fact perfection - appalling inclement weather on one side of the window, Peter's arms wrapped around her and the room lit with a single bedside lamp, leaving a warm yellow glow around them. She felt like she was back in that old Oak tree at the bottom of the garden in the house in Somerset; sitting in the hollowed out bowels of the ancient tree. She had often wondered how many stories that tree could tell her and whether any other little girls or boys had sought its shelter in the years past.

She sighed and nestled closer to him, tightening her arm around his waist. For the first time she noticed he seemed tense, eyes closed but by no means asleep.

She had learned just in the matter of a week that they had been married that when he was truly asleep his breathing was so shallow she could barely see his chest rise and fall. It had petrified her on their first honeymoon night she had woken at 3 o'clock in the morning, ice cold and in a search for warmth could barely see or feel him breathing.

Suddenly, another bolt lit the room and she felt his arm around her involuntarily tighten.

_I hate thunderstorms. They remind me too much of gunfire. Crackling of shells and flashes of light in the distance reverberating around me as I lie in a hellhole trench. I can still feel in the back of my throat the smell of filth, the rotting flesh, the damp musty odour of mud that assaults me. I can still hear the sounds of men screaming even now; 13 years since I came home. _

_I suddenly look to my side, crouched with my back to the wall of the soaking trench, the walls threatening to cave in as we had nothing to shore them up. I can still hear the Padre with his gold rimmed spectacles and silver rosary beads whispering a prayer in Latin. There is a body in front of him, a pool of fresh red blood on the chest and shoulder; the face unrecognisable as human. I do not truly know what I am seeing before me except another life is wasted and gone. The lilt of the Padre's voice comforts me as I feel the mud seeping into my uniform and boots, the whistling of bullets and din of explosions all around me. For barely seconds, I suddenly find myself transported to church, the church choir and Mum and Dad sitting in the front pew as I sang as the Padre helps this barely borne soul to go to rest. _

_I can see myself looking across the trench. A figure sits, like me, on his haunches eyes wild. I recognise those eyes. My brother, a 17 year old child who lied to enlist so he could be with me. Who was I trying to kid? I was still a child myself; suddenly remembering I would be 18 in 3 days. How can you go from being a child to an adult in a day? I can still see him, little that we were to know that barely a few weeks later, in the calamity of Market Garden; I would never see him my precious brother again. I myself would find that I would hear my own screams as fire engulfed my uniform, skin tearing as somebody, and I still do not know who, tried to douse the flames. I can still remember the silence in my own ears as consciousness failed me._

_The next thing I felt was my mother's arms around me, as gently as she could protecting my incinerated back, back in England as nurses tended to me. Now, when I am suddenly reminded of those days, I wish that I had met a certain nurse long before now. We would only have been children ourselves then, but I knew I would have loved her._

_It is my turn to protect now though as she is finally here. She, the woman who I am determined that I will share the rest of my life with and more, is lying here. The suddenness of the sky still alarms me but I slowly realise I can listen to anything the world plans to throw at me as long as I can hear her breathing. _

_I could stay here with her forever._

He felt her shift against his chest.

"Peter, are you awake?" He thought he could hear concern in her voice.

As she sat up, she saw him open his eyes a little and smile at her.

"Yes," he replied, although she could see he was slowly dragging himself back from the miles he had been travelling in his mind.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm perfect" he replied, smiling at her, squeezing her hands in the process.

"You have a high opinion of yourself" she teased. "Perfect?"

"My life is perfect as long as you are here. Is that better?" he responded, smiling back at her.

"Much", she said, before she leant down and gave him a brief kiss.

"Shall we go and see if supper is ready?" he said taking a glance at the clock that read a few minutes shy of 8 o'clock.

She nodded without saying another word and they stood up, him from one side of the bed, her from the other and he took her outstretched hand. Behind him, through the net curtains, the rain tormented the window and the branches of a tree trembled outside.

With her fingers entwined in his, though, as they closed the bedroom door behind themselves, his heart did not jolt and she did not wish for that old Oak tree.

EK


End file.
